The second season of a documentary series answers questions about whether a Ukrainian orphan was actually an adult pretending to be a child to fool her adoptive parents, who had persuaded a judge to change her legal age from 9 to 22 years old as they claimed she terrorized their family.
DNA analysis, dental records and an endocrinologist’s evaluation are offered as evidence of Natalia Grace Barnett’s true age in “Natalia Speaks,” Investigation Discovery’s second season of its 2023 blockbuster “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace.”
According to health and scientific professionals, Natalia was in fact a child in 2012 when Michael and Kristine Barnett petitioned an Indiana court to change the date on her birth certificate from 2003 to 1989. Shortly afterward, the couple moved to Canada with their three biological sons, leaving Natalia, who has a form of dwarfism, to fend for herself in apartments they rented for her in Indiana.
An endocrinologist who examined Natalia in 2010 estimated her to be 9 to 11 years old.
A dentist reviewing her X-rays from his 2011 examination for “Natalia Speaks” pointed out that she still had 12 baby teeth at the time, calling the results “indisputable.” Kristine Barnett, he said, left the consultation with documentation of his finding that she was 8 to 9 years old.
And filmmakers were there when Natalia received the results of a recent epigenetic DNA test, which determined she is now no older than 22, making it clear she was a child when deserted by the family nearly 12 years ago.
“This one little piece of paper,” Natalia said, holding up the page with the DNA results, “throws every single lie that the Barnetts have said right into the trash, with a match.”
The docuseries’ first season, which aired in July, examined the bizarre claims by the Barnetts (who later divorced) that Natalia was posing as a child to hide what they alleged was a murderous intent. As Natalia points out in the second season, their accusations — that she poisoned Kristine Barnett’s coffee with cleaning fluid, pushed her into an electric fence, stood by the sleeping couple’s bed brandishing a knife and threw her brothers’ toys in the street in the hopes that the boys would get run over — parallel the story of “The Orphan,” a horror film that premiered in 2009, the year before the Barnetts adopted Natalia.
It remains unclear why a probate judge would base the decision to change Natalia’s age solely on the Barnetts’ accounts and a formula based on determinations that she hadn’t grown in two years.
Natalia was not at the hearing — nor was she aware it was happening, she says in the second season. Its title, “Natalia Speaks,” refers to the fact that she wasn’t heard in “The Curious Case,” outside of home videos and filmed depositions, because she was bound by a gag order.
Both Michael and Kristine Barnett were charged with neglect, but Michael Barnett was acquitted by a jury in October 2022, and charges against Kristine were later dropped. The trial court ruled that evidence about Natalia’s age and adoption could not be heard in the trial based on statute of limitation laws, but it was later released publicly by local prosecutors.
Natalia hints at the possibility that she will file civil lawsuits against the Barnetts for abuse and neglect. The final episode of “Natalia Speaks” documents her adoption as an adult in June 2023 by Antwon and Cynthia Mans, a couple who had taken her in after seeing the apartment where she was living alone after the Barnetts moved to Canada.
“What this adoption will do is kind of pave the way for anything you want to do legally in the future,” Natalia’s lawyer Peter Kenny said in a meeting prior to the adoption. “Because the evidence will speak for itself.”